The joy of Bumgarner’s country ways

There’s something about Madison Bumgarner that makes you feel good about spring training, baseball, and life itself. When he came out of the right-field bullpen to face batting-practice hitters for the first time today, everyone thought back to that night in Kansas City, when he made that classic entrance from the same part of the ballpark. Hector Sanchez described his debut stuff as “unreal,” which pretty much says it all.

This spring has given us the definitive Bumgarner photo, holding an axe as he stands alongside a massive ox. You know he’s country, and the more you learn, the more country he becomes. That photo reminds me of an e-mail I got from a reader named Dave Schlom, who wrote, “I have my own private nickname for him. His big sweeping motion reminds me of a big ranch gate opening and closing. So I call him Big Gate. Every time, I say, ‘Come on, Big Gate — shut them cows outta there!’ It seems to work. For me, anyway.”

Another reader, Edwin Glaser, wrote, “Bumgarner reminds me a lot of a pitcher on the old New York Giants named Cliff Melton. He had the physique (6-5, 204), the demeanor, and his facial expressions were a dead ringer for Bumgarner. He was from Brevard, North Carolina, and one of his nicknames was ‘Mountain Music.'”

(Melton pitched for the New York Giants from 1937 through ’44 with a career 86-80 record, going 20-9 in his rookie year, and he pitched in the ’37 World Series against one of the great Yankee teams of all time, giving up a home run to Joe DiMaggio in Game 5.)

Finally, there was this from Sports Illustrated’s Tom Verducci: “The legend of Madison Bumgarner fits neatly in the space where we keep our idea of the archetypal outdoorsy, country man, where also reside the embellished, fictionalized Daniel Boone and Mayberry’s Sheriff Andy Taylor. It’s just that in Bumgarner’s case, the stories are true.”

As Bumgarner stands next that ox, you get the feeling he hasn’t changed a bit. “Trust me, all that success won’t get to him,” said manager Bruce Bochy. “But we’ll give him a hard time in spring training, just to make sure he doesn’t get a big head like me.”